1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing system in which plural printers are connected to one another via a network, and, more particularly to a print job distributing and holding system, a printing system, a print job holding apparatus, a printer, a print job holding apparatus control program, a printer control program, a print job holding apparatus control method, and a printer control method that are suitable for distributing and holding plural print jobs for the respective printers.
2. Related Art
There is a technique for allowing a user to print a print job that the user has suspended at arbitrary timing like a technique used in the printing system disclosed in JP-A-9-269880.
There is also a technique for controlling a capacity limit (quota) for each user, for example, performing timeout management for a print job and for controlling a holding capacity of a print job, for example, limiting the number of jobs like a technique used in an image forming apparatus disclosed in JP-A-11-225255.
The related art disclosed in JP-A-9-269880 is suitable when a user desires to secure confidentiality of a document to be printed. However, when print jobs concentrate on a specific printer, it is likely that shortage of a capacity of a storage device for storing print jobs occurs in the printer and the print jobs sent to the printer cannot be held.
In the related art disclosed in JP-A-11-225255, shortage of a capacity of a storage device for storing print jobs occurs less easily. However, it is likely that, since print jobs are controlled, when the number of suspended print jobs reaches an upper limit of the limited number of print jobs, even if there is another print job that a user desires to hold, it is impossible to suspend the print job. This causes inconvenience for the user.